Rival parties launch campaign committees, head into full-scale election mode

SEOUL, March 28 (Yonhap) -- Ruling and opposition parties launched campaign committees Monday for next month's parliamentary election and went into full-fledged election mode. The April 13 polls will elect a total of 300 lawmakers for a four-year term, with 253 of them to be selected through direct elections and the remaining 47 proportional representation seats to be allocated to parties according to the numbers of votes that they receive overall. The ruling Saenuri Party launched its campaign committee headed by Kang Bong-kyun with the participation of all of the candidates vying for the seats. Kang, traditionally considered a member of a liberal bloc, accepted Saenuri Party Chairman Kim Moo-sung's invitation to take the role of the party's campaign chief. The main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea also launched its campaign committee and held its first meeting. Kim Chong-in, interim chairman of the party, was designated to double as the chief campaign manager. Meanwhile, the approval ratings of both parties edged down due to decreased support on their home turfs, a poll showed Monday. The findings released by local pollster Realmeter showed 38.3 percent of people approved of how the ruling Saenuri Party is doing as of last week, down 3.2 percentage points from a week earlier. Meanwhile, the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea's approval rating came to 24.9 percent, down 3.4 percentage points. The poll attributed the Saenuri's result to the fallen approval rating in the so-called TK region comprising the central city of Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. In a survey of Gwangju and Jeolla provinces, the traditional stronghold of the opposition bloc, the Minjoo Party's approval rating also dipped. The telephone survey was conducted on 2,522 adults between Monday and Friday last week and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. khj@yna.co.kr (END)